Messing Around With Old Wiring

The easiest residential wiring to work with (short of metal conduit, which you’ll never find in a typical home) is grounded NMB copper cable. It’s newer than knob-and-tube wiring, the insulation is tough plastic, and you have none of the safety dilemmas that you have with aluminum wiring. If your electrical system was recently installed and inspected, it should be simple to trace circuits and calculate loads as you plan your additions and changes.
Regardless of the age of your system, you’ll have to tally your amperage usage for the total system as well as for each individual circuit affected by your work. Simply looking inside your service panel and counting the breakers or looking for an empty space to install a breaker isn’t enough. Wiring or changing your system generally means doing some damage to your house.
The larger the access holes and openings for boxes, the more repairs you’ll have to do. Your working goal should be to keep the repairs and patching to a minimum. As you can see, there’s more to electrical work than simply deciding to add a receptacle and running some wire.

Sock It to Your Socket

In addition to damaged plugs, lamp sockets also are a regular culprit when a lamp won’t light. The socket itself doesn’t wear out, but the switch does. Several types of replacement sockets are available including …
➤ Pull chain.
➤ Twist knob.
➤ Push lever.
➤ Remote.
It’s easiest to replace your existing socket with one of the same style. Follow these steps to inspect and replace your socket:

1. Unplug the lamp.
2. Look at the outer shell of your socket. If it says “Press,” you can squeeze the socket and pull it out. If not, your socket is held in by screws, or the socket and harp (the frame for the lampshade) are secured to a threaded metal tube that runs the height of the lamp and is bolted at the base.
3. With the socket removed, check the wire connections at the screw terminals. If they’re tight, loosen the screws and remove the wires.
4. Test for continuity by placing your tester’s clip on one prong of the plug. Put the probe on the black wire and then the neutral wire. Put the clip on the other prong and repeat the test. If the tester’s bulb doesn’t light for either prong, you’ve got a bad cord and plug, and they’ll need to be replaced.
5. When you’ve determined that the socket is the source of your lamp woes, replace it with a new one with matching volt and amp ratings. Remember to attach the neutral wire in the ribbed or ridged insulation to the silver screw terminal and to attach the black or hot wire to the brass screw terminal.
6. Slide the insulating cardboard sleeve and outer shell over the socket and install in the lamp snuggly. (It fits into the lamp cap.)
7. Reinstall the harp, shade, and bulb and then test.

Round-Cord Plugs

These are made for heavier-duty loads and loads needing a grounding plug. The terminal screws also are more substantial than on smaller, flatcord plugs such as those on lamps and radios.
Follow these steps to install a round-cord plug:

1. Cut the cord end clean with lineman’s pliers or a combination tool.
2. If there’s an insulating disc with the new plug, remove it.
3. Pass the cord through the clamp on the rear of the plug.
4. Strip two to three inches of insulation from the round cord and 3⁄4-inch of insulation from the hot, neutral, and grounding wires. Tighten the clamp.
5. Take the black wire and the white wire and tie an underwriter’s knot as close as you can to the cut edge of the insulation on the cord.
6. Wrap or hook the end of the black wire around the brass terminal screw going in a clockwise direction. Do the same with the neutral wire and the silver terminal as well as the grounding conductor and the green terminal.
7. Tighten the terminal screws securely. Make sure the wires are not touching each other.
8. Install the insulating disc.

Bugged by Bad Plugs

An intact plug has straight prongs, a solid casing, and a cardboard insulating faceplate or disc (unless the entire plug is solid plastic). If the prongs are bent, the casing cracked, or the faceplate missing, replace the plug.
Plugs come in a variety of styles including …

➤ Flat-cord plugs.
➤ Quick-connect plugs.
➤ Polarized plugs.
➤ Round-cord plugs.

The easiest plug to install is a quick-connect plug. The prongs of the quick-connect plug can be removed from the casing by squeezing them together. By spreading them, the lamp cord can be inserted. To attach a quick-connect plug, squeeze the prongs together and slide them back into the casing. You don’t have to do any work on the wire; just follow the instructions on the package. Be sure the plug is rated for the load to which you’re attaching it. (You won’t get away with a quick plug on a heavy-duty portable appliance, for example.)
To replace a flat-cord plug, disassemble the casing on the new plug, pull apart the two halves of the lamp cord to the length of two inches or so, strip the insulation off the ends of each half, wrap the wires clockwise around the screw terminals, and reassemble the casing. The quick-connect plug is the easier of these two to install, but it’s not the best choice for a lamp that’s unplugged often.

The Easy Lamp Repairs

You turn on your trusty reading lamp and—nothing. Chances are it’s the light bulb. Remove the old bulb, screw in a new one, and you should be ready to go. If not, you’ll have to inspect further. Your problem could be …

➤ The power supply.
➤ The receptacle.
➤ The contact tab at the bottom of the light socket.
➤ The light socket.
➤ The cord or plug.

The power supply and the receptacle are easy enough to check. A voltage tester will tell you whether the receptacle is hot, and a quick trip to your fuse box or service panel will tell you whether the problem is originating there. If a breaker has tripped or a fuse has gone out, you need to discover the cause before you can consider the problem solved.
The contact tab at the bottom of the socket is the same one referred to previously in this chapter in the “Inspect First” section. Simply unplug the lamp and use a small screwdriver to pull up slightly on the tab. If the bulb still doesn’t work, you’ll have to look at your cord and plug more closely.

The Pieces Inside Fluorescent Fixtures

All fluorescent fixtures have the following major components:

• Ballast
• Sockets
• Lamps (a.k.a. light bulbs or tubes) The ballast is like a small transformer inside the fixture.

It has two major jobs:

• First, it provides the spark that sets off the gas within the tube, making that gas fluoresce. This requires higher voltage.
• Then, the transformer reduces the voltage to the (very low) level necessary to sustain lighting.

There are three main types of ballasts or fluorescent circuits: preheat, rapid start, and instant start. (The type is identified on the ballast casing.)
Preheat technology dates back to the original fluorescent fixtures, and it is used today mostly for certain low-wattage fixtures such as compact fluorescent fixtures. This type of circuit uses a starter.
Rapid starts are the most frequently used ballasts today. They maintain a continuous low-wattage circuit to the lamp’s filaments so they start up faster (in less than a second). This style of ballast also comes in a version that allows dimming. An instant-start ballast, as the name implies, ignites the gas in the lamp instantly. It supplies a higher starting voltage than the other types of ballasts, and like the rapidstart variety, it requires no separate starter. The drawback to this voltage boost is that it requires a special lamp. The lamp also will have a shorter life than those used for rapid-start circuits. One way you can distinguish between the lamps is by the number of pins on the ends of the lamp. (These pins insert into the fixture’s sockets or tubeholders.) Rapid-start lamps are bi-pin (they have two pins); most, but not all, instantstart versions have only one.

Try a New Style

Styles and fashions change, a fact that’s certainly not lost on America’s retailers. The dim ceiling fixtures with the square-shaped glass domes from the 1950s and 1960s just don’t cut it any more, unless you’re into retro-hip lifestyles complete with hula hoops and strange-looking dinette sets. The array of fixture choices today is astounding. Just about any period of fixture can be matched, or a completely updated style can be installed. The only limits are your imagination and your checkbook. Some fixtures can greatly increase the amount of lighting in a room. A single overhead fixture in a long hallway, for example, might be replaced with track lighting running the length of the hallway, turning it into a great space to display paintings or photographs. As always, make sure your circuit can support the increased current demand should you replace a fixture with one of a higher wattage rating. There’s no need to limit yourself to using incandescent fixtures to replace your existing ones. Fluorescent fixtures, especially compact models, should be considered as well.